So Tig and his companions packed their stores and took their arms, their best bows and all their war-arrows and their shields of wickerwork covered with hide; and pitched their camp up in the hills. They watched the hill, day and night, for the alarm-fire; and meantime they prepared themselves for battle, dyeing and painting their bodies with red paint and blue paint; also they exercised themselves in war-games and dances.
Early in the morning of the third day the men on the look-out saw three columns of smoke rising from the top of the hill far off. So Tig sent two of the young men who were swift runners to carry the news to Garff, and he sent Eira, and the other women who had been with them, home also; and he and his five companions set off to go to the Lake Village.
A Very Old Stone Axe
Chapter the Thirtieth
How they Fought the Battle in the Wood
WHEN Garff and his men reached the Lake Village, they found the people armed and ready. The Chief of the Lake People, whose name was Bran, came out to meet Garff, and he called him and some of his men into the council that they might make a plan of war. And he told Garff that his spies had seen the army of the Warriors muster at daybreak on the river bank. They had crossed in canoes, and had built a stockade on this side of the water, and dragged the canoes ashore. They had been seen fixing long poles to the canoes, which were light ones made of wicker and hide; and it was thought that they meant to carry some of the canoes over the hills to the lake, so that one band of their men might attack the island from the canoes, while another band should try to force the gangway.
Then one of the old men stood up and said: